341
Student Loan Forgiveness: Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Debt Forgiveness Plan
(www.nytimes.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
341 points (97.5% liked)
sh.itjust.works Main Community
7751 readers
3 users here now
Home of the sh.itjust.works instance.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Which is so fucked. The supreme court shouldn't "lean" one way or another. They should interpret the laws and constitution and consider the merits of the letter vs the intent of the law, not give their own opinion on the matter.
I remember here in Canada, back in the days of Harper, just how many times conservative appointed judges struck down conservative laws because they were unconstitutional.
Whether they personally believe this or that shouldn't even matter at all.
Ideally, this is correct.
This is where the door is opened for partisan politics. In the US at least, the further right you go, the more strict the constitution and laws are interpreted. The more progressive you are, the more you consider the intent and affects of the laws. Which is how you get folks hung up on terms like "Shall not infringe" or "shall make no law".
This is a myth conservatives want you to believe. In reality, they use the constitution and laws to protect but not bind themselves, while at the same time to bind but not protect others. In the state of Virginia today access to pornographic sites without ID verification was made illegal by Republicans. This example or any of the BS Desantis has pulled recently in Florida shows when aligned with their goals there is no hesitation to pass anti-constitutional measures.
In the case of student loans - public education helps the out group, so any justification (constitutional or otherwise) will be used to attack it.
It's basically what you said, but put another way:
Strict interpretation allows the interpreter to ignore obvious context or intent in bad faith. It's a way of shrugging off ambiguity in order to defend a status quo that they prefer.
I mean, the laws and constitution were written by a bunch of wig-sporting white guys who owned slaves, so I would say that the supreme court is doing a great job in keeping up with the "spirit of the law".